"Religion" - Readymade and Sound Sculpture

I had gotten an email notification of a DADA/Surrealism/Readymade/Found-Object art show, and it occurred to me that this could be a good venue to put out my first “sound-sculpture baby” to the art world at large and see how it is received or rejected. The entry deadline was only a couple of days away so I mostly cloistered myself within this project this last week and finished it a few hours ahead of the deadline.

The title of the piece is “Religion”. It comments on Consumerism as the all-encompassing religion of America. A lot has been studied and written about Consumerism as a religion, for those who are interested in reading a sample of these available on the internet, I have listed a few links at the end of this post.

“Religion” is a piece about the “voices” of things. Phenomenologically speaking, the things we interact which are imbued with meaning. Objects speak to us with the voices that are given to them in our daily interactions with the world at large. In American culture, advertising is the foremost authority that gives voice to the objects all around us. These voices are “transparent” in that we are not conscious of what is spoken but, unconsciously, they speak clearly to us of promise: The promise of validation, recognition, acceptance, status, love, happiness… On the other hand, they also speak of lack, shame, inadequacy, rejection, and outcast. These voices pass, unfiltered, into our subconscious and they echo transparently inside heads. What they say is unheard, until they are translated into our interior dialog, which are then spoken with authority and heard clearly as the voice of our inner self.

“Religion” gives clear voice to the three shopping bags colored red, white, and blue. The voices are made opaque and there is no denying them any longer. The sculpture of the sound is made like echoes that reverberate from the universal static signal of advertising.

In the piece, a pair of speakers is hidden in the bags, and the sound (10 minutes) is run on a continuous loop. As an update on the previous "sound system" post, I’d say I’m generally happy with the entire system. The sound quality is equivalent to my current home stereo, which is of a fairly decent quality. It won’t blow any audiophiles away, but it will get the sound-sculpture job done. The only obvious complaint is that the fan of the power amplifier is rather noisy. Which might pose a problem when I start experimenting with live sound; I’m sure the mics will pick up the fan noise with no problem at all. But, hey, it was a cheap power amplifier…

Below, I list three web articles that talk more about Consumerism as a religion: (I can't seem to be able to make the web addresses into links. So please just copy the lines and paste to the browser address field. Sorry.)

http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1618.php (“The Myth of Consumerism”)

http://www.rochesterunitarian.org/2000-01/20010729.html (“The Religion of Consumerism”)

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_07/issue_09/opinion_04.html (“The Religion of Consumption”)